Filling the gaps on “From Cents to Pence” – Alan Class comics info sought

By downthetubes Guests on November 28, 2025 • ( 0 )

Author Rob Kirby, still working on his much-anticipated book about Marvel UK, From Cents to Pence!, is hoping downthetubes readers can help him fill some gaps with details of some Alan Class published Marvel Comics reprints…

Lockdown wasn’t all bad, some interest creative projects, and archive discoveries came out of that strange, enforced time confined to home.

As part of my deep dive researches for the From Cents to Pence! project, it was always been my intention to take a stab at indexing the Atlas and Marvel contents of the Alan Class comics, but I’d never had the time to look into what that would entail. In my case, the various Lockdown periods gave me the chance to pull together a set of skeleton indices based on the, then scant, information had been patched in to the ever-useful Grand Comics Database (GCD) resource.

The Alan Class reprint volumes have maintained a mystique, and unique draw, in part due to the variety of material Class printed. The scarcity of information about them, not least when they went on sale, due to the deliberate lack of cover dating to keep them sale-able over a long period, and their lack of internal copyright dates, has only added to their pull.

Amazing Stories of Suspense Issue 49 (Alan Class)

Nonetheless, I enjoy a challenge, and after a few years chipping away at the listings, aided by a sudden rush of entries into the various series recorded on the GCD, what’s left is a mere handful of issues that I still need the contents information from.

At the time of writing, I’ve yet to find a full list of the contents to the following issues of just two of Class’ many series: Uncanny Tales #30, 48, 81, 83 and #S (“The Day the Masks…” cover), and Amazing Stories of Suspense #49, 87, 240 and 241.

All I need are the story titles for the material they include, plus the page counts for each story.

Hopefully, someone reading this will be able to help, even if just removes another one or two from the remaining issues to investigate.

As a result of taking a closer look at the Alan Class output, there’s actually more information to be gleaned about the titles than has been previously recorded, but we’ll save those reveals for the eventual release of the From Cents to Pence! book.

Rob Kirby

Rob has been hugely supportive of our much smaller efforts to document Marvel UK projects, providing plenty of information, for example, to add to our “Marvel UK: “Genesis ’92” – Looking Back and What Might Have Been” resource

• Check out and follow A Distant Beacon, Rob’s web journal

• More items on or from Rob’s project From Cents to Pence! on downthetubes

If you can provide information on the contents of the Alan Class titles Rob is searching for, please comment below – due to high levels of spam, comments are moderated but we try to approve them quickly!